Source: Livescience.com
A suite of lizards called skinks have just crawled into the science books, with researchers discovering 24 new species of the reptiles from the Caribbean islands.
Many of the skink species were identified from museum specimens, and now, the researchers say half of the newbies may be extinct or close to extinction, with the others threatened with extinction, said lead study researcher Blair Hedges, a professor of biology at Penn State University.
The researchers examined the specimens using DNA and the appearances of the animals, including the number and shape of their scales, to identify them. Of the 39 species they identified from the Caribbean, six were already known and nine had been named long ago but not considered valid until now
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